Thursday, December 4, 2008

do i chose to find You now,or am i just waiting for later?two weeks lingeringi don't know if i've made this all that it could have been.aboveconstellations continue on;while below,i think there's so much to be done.don't let me pass beauty by-because something that is very ripecould easily become rotten.

"i feel close to You here.""just rememberthat this is where I am your whole day through."

Exchanges of words are valuable;It just seems slightly off when at least 50% of your relations are carried out digitally.But personal interaction is an expensive commodity.When it is afforded,It's no surprise I'm left feeling warm.

Monday, October 13, 2008

i knew i would have to know You as the God who made existence possible.

a cluttered mind is nowhere to delve, if clarity is what you're looking for. often, peace is in the morning, before the world wakes up. a neon-blue sky filled with early morning stars makes for a peaceful gathering. if not the morning, a young night sky is equally useful.

life takes time to process, and when you don't take the time to process, things get a little backed up, like an email inbox. slowly you begin to answer back.

i can't say i'm surprised; but in any case, life requires adjustment. i will therefore follow suit.

Friday, October 3, 2008

I was sitting in the tall grass, and I felt bad, because I didn't know that I had anything to give You. You provided a starry host, I provided a confused and muted heart; nonetheless i was impressed by your handiwork.

For some reason or another, I was under the impression that I have to give something to make the time worth it for You.

But You just wanted me to sit with you. To look at something that is on display but not often viewed. Not to go somewhere. Not to "do something exciting."

It affects my relationship with You, it affects my relationship with others - the need to feel that I have something to offer.

I value that You want to sit with me, even if the most exciting thing I do all day is read a book or rummage through large batches of digital photography.

Friday, September 19, 2008

inside felt cold, however the yellow light that has newly been incorporated into the living space was quick to warm me up, at least partially.

sometimes it is easy to feel left behind. (no, i don't mean this in the sense of the best seller "Christian" fictional series.[which unfortunately i read entirely as a middle schooler]) i need You to give security, even to be it for me.

i just needed some space, but that same space that i desired left me feeling awkward. sometimes it feels as though circumstances don't fit, but instead cling to you like an ill-fitting cardigan.

Friday, August 29, 2008

and for the next five days, they'll be found in wranglers, boots, and cowboy hats, or some combination of the three. Even though the other 360 days of the year they are found in anything but these. I don't miss the riff-raff - un-local yay-hoo's taking over a beautiful valley as if she were their own, a passing summer fling. Many of them won't even call back after the weekend is over.

For the rest of the year, I'm happy to call Ellensburg my own, but for this Labor Day weekend, I am happy to be anywhere but the 25 mile radius that surrounds her. It hurts me to know that my little princess of a town will have to endure the abuse of this weekend.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

We stood surrounded by trees, and the Lord was there, along with the warm yellow light. I was surprised by a moment that was beautiful.

---

Rumor has it you're required to check into a flight at least 30 minutes prior to departure. I never thought this would be an issue - until sunday I was trying to check in 31 minutes prior to departure, and was cut of half way though check in, when the computer's clock changed to 30 minutes. Suprisingly, NWA sticks to their guns. I certainly didn't fly back to Kona on Sunday.

Monday brought success as far as boarding aircraft goes. I certainly had to fly through SFO and HON, being delayed by a few hours at each leg of the journey. I don't know that I've ever felt so far away from Kona. Eventually I arrived, and am now sitting to you typing from area code 96740: Kailua-Kona.

But am I steadfast, or will I just resort to complaining when life becomes a hassle? When original callings become tried, are they something I will continue to tie myself to? I don't know that it would be worth it if it were something completely easy. Life, at many points, will require sacrifice. Sometimes time spent with family. Sometimes a preferred climate. Sometimes ambient lighting. I'm trusting though, that these things, entrusted to him, will become what they need to be.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Flying anywhere in Hawaii, you automatically feel like a tourist. Even if you aren’t wearing a flowered shirt, black socks, a fanny pack, or a staw hat. If you’re in the airport, you can’t help but feel like an obnoxious outsider. I’m in the airport now.

I’m out of the vog, but it’s still hard to know where I’m going. Life is changes. Home I would normally see as familiar, but this time it will involve even more changes. Not that changes are bad, I just have to learn to live in light of them. Lord knows I need to be kept from becoming too settled.

Commitment. An example will soon be seen. Already, I see that this is something that cannot help but be related to so many things outside wedding dresses and rings and honeymoons. Surely it applies to these. But surely it must also relate to our relationships (friendships or “serious”), projects, long-term vision, and ultimately our involvement with the One who is much greater.

Distance and time zones quite often seem to stand in the way. However, they exist, and I therefore must learn to function in their reality. I’m noticing a common thread.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I don't know what it will look like, and I don't know what it will say, but I'm willing to move forward. The struggle as of late: application of an often times obscure faith to a world with concrete needs. Wanting to say something real that will be more than just a stream of words, stylistically laid out, sans serif, with strong images. We can know so much while still remaining unaware of practical solutions. When we move towards Your heart we move towards these. The pieces fit, there are just so many of them to sort through.

So I carry a bible, and a newspaper. I'm sure they go together in some way or another.

I don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t know what I’m feeling. And in this it’s become apparent that I run rather dry, and You stand rather strong. There is so much about You to dwell on, even when I don't feel right. I’m trying to trust You when You say the approval is here.

Friday, July 25, 2008

{Thus in (Psalm) 36, "My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly," each can reflect that his own heart is the specimen of that wickedness best known to him. After that, the upward plunge at verse 5 into the mercy high as heaven and the righteousness solid as the mountains takes on even more force and beauty. From this point of view I can use even the horrible passage in (Psalm) 137 about dashing the Babylonian babies against the stones. I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us "I don't ask much, but", or "I had at least hoped", or "you owe yourself some consideration". Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best. Knock the little bastards' brains out. And "blessed" he who can, for it's easier said than done.}

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, p. 136

This is certainly one of the most brilliant inductive interpretations I've heard in a long time. Thanks Clive.

Life lately is scattered. The daily schedule includes, but is not limited to morning yogurt-eating, class time, recycling, reverse watermelon-ing into small swimming pools, and quite often a lot of meetings and brainstorming. It's cool, but it's hard to know where this is all going. I'm having to trust that nothing You do is without Your purposes, or Your direction for that matter. Even when everything can seem so un-directed.

You want me in places where I can see your abilities and mine own disabilities. Not as grounds for showing me how weak I am (though this is accomplished); moreso I think as grounds for showing me how capable you are. It's going to be unbelievable to see what your hands can produce, if only I will let you grab them and put them to the work for which you have intended them.

Friday, July 18, 2008

More and more I see that your presence is one that musn't be confined to one room or a single session of song-singing. Really, where doesn't your presence exist? Where shouldn't we be caught up in the understanding and depth that is found in Your affections? How quietly unaware of You we can be. Make us ones who are living with open eyes.

Why shouldn't we find you in best-selling literature? Do you cry when we confine ourselves away from that which would challenge our "knowledge" of You? Really, what couldn't You use to reveal Yourself? So, when we cast off certain items as an offense to our understandings, are we therefore casting ourselves away from the understanding we would develop of You in those areas? I'm believing You have overwhelming depth of insight to speak to individuals today, even through things that aren't sold in Christian bookstores.

And in my own life, you have given me the ability to speak, to say something, anything. Am I saying it? It's time something authentic, and I thank You that I don't have to wait for it to come from contemporary circles or pop culture.

---

Batman is surely now slaying the masses at the box office. Unfortunately, I will most likely be a part of contributing to its large profit margin. From what I've seen, I'm thinking it may be more about giving America hope in the midst of economic downfall than it is about a man who looks adorns a bat costume while saving the people of Gotham city.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Soon I shall find myself descending (in some dimensions I would prefer to say ascending) into your stately pines, blue water, clean air, and bustling traffic. The tropics can be enjoyable, but in all honesty, I do prefer the forest, mountains, and snow that falls in the winter.

My communication will no longer be typed characters displayed as pixels on electronic monitors. How I will handle this transition I am not entirely sure. Sometimes I feel it's easier to type, less easy to speak with creative diction in proper syntax (at least in any agreeable amount of time.) With audible conversation, you don't hear green, squiggly, lines informing you of improper semi-colon use; with speech, I find myself mumbling, drowning in words, usually saying something I don't mean to say. I like Micrososft word because you can drag sentences exactly where you know they need to be. I need practice in socialization.

And here it comes.

---

I'll spend 15.83 at Starbucks IF it is an airplane company that is footing the bill.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

those who wait for Youthose who seek Youstrangeraliendrunkardsthe humblethe poor prisonersservants

These are who You came for. Help me not to be so prideful that I cannot see myself in one, if not many, of these. Thank You for coming for those who need/needed/will-need You. It's not something we would automatically look for.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Thursday, May Friday, May 23: Hotel Room in Douz, Tunisia. Woke up sweating, stood up, went back to sleep.Saturday, May 24: Bed in Sousse, Tunisia.Sunday, May 25: A few hours on the cold tile in the Madrid airport didn't prove to allow for much slumber, but it got us home to Torremolinos.Monday, May 26: Bunkbed in Torremolinos, Spain.Tuesday, May 27: Bunkbed in Amsterdam Base. Ate noodle, stocked up on salt licorice.Wednesday, May 28: Ground of Charlotte airport. Though awakened every two hours by the loudspeaker recording, slept remarkably well.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

On Thursday I purchased a block of cheese. It didn't taste very well, but I figured it was valuable protein, so I decided I would make use of it. Before lunch today, I had 50% of the block of cheese left to eat. After lunch today, I had zero percent left to eat. This was eaten with nearly ten pieces of cracker bread, mostly to mask the taste of the neutrally-flavoured cheese. If I had to describe the taste, I would probably describe it as invisible.

Tonight for dinner I consumed some Ramen, though it wasn't name brand Ramen. I had some more cracker bread left, so I decided to finish them off. Fairly certain over ten pieces disappeared into my tummy-box.

Tonight I'm going to sleep/wait/knit/write/read/eat muesli in the Charles De Gaulle airport. I will have sufficient energy to do this because I have consumed so much cracker bread.

Friday, April 25, 2008

There's a homeless man. Roaming the streets of Amsterdam. Stoned out of his mind. He walks around wearing wooden shoes, playing a classical guitar for the many tourists that come through the flourescently-lit area. In this case the tourists were Spanish-speaking. But he fails to feel acknowledged. As I walk away the last thing I hear him mutter is, "I can speak seven languages and it doesn't even matter."

We speak languages: We do ministry. We sing songs. We intercede. We learn. We travel. But what good is this if nothing is expressed in love? With love we can speak in a language of significance, a language that will translate a mind that is clouded with herb and the other fogginess that other forms of emptiness may bring about. This is a language I want to learn.

I thank you LORD that You are a rock when much else seems to have de-evolved into a gelatin-like consistency. Your faithfulness sets this servant to dance.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I'm realizing that everywhere I look is through something you have made. I can't look in any direction without staring through the expanses of your quite unconventional palate. Just as the clouds you've formed are something moldable and fluffy, the paths of which are unpredictable to my will yet ever being predicted by yours - so too I ask you would make me.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle...(Psalm 32: 8-9, NKJV)

It often struggle to take steps when my vision seems ever obscured by some sort of un-seeable blindfold.

I will trust, believe, go, walk, etcetera, but save me from turning it into something mechanical.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

It's a bummer to have a laptop and other expensive electronics in that backpack, but it is also a bummer to be without the practical ammenities such as underpants, a couple t-shirts for the week, and chargers that can no longer be used to charge the electronics that are still left in your posession, amongst other things.

But life is still good. I see that these things can't take away from where I stand with the Lord, and that is in life. Pray that the one's who absconded with these things may also come to the realization of this life (perhaps reading through the journals or bibles they'll see something that catches their eye?) And then maybe they could then drop off the backpacks and objects within to an obvious location where those objects can then be transported to the fuzz, and in turn moi, Sung Ha, and Christina.

And to you, State Farm Insurance, please accept the claim on these stolen goods.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

These are some arts from the West Bank side of the Security Barrier between Israel and the West Bank. I can't say I agree with all of the staunch, polemical (this is a new word I've just learned) messages behind these pieces; however, I like the style, and I like that most of them say something. It challenges me.

A couple of these are the more famous Banksy pieces he's done in Bethlehem fairly recently, i.e. bulletproof vest on bird, scissor cut-out, and children on the beach.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Now I’m going to say thank you. Because you continue to be good regardless of how I feel.Though my circumstances may not be the best, I can find life in your words.Your truth exceeds all information and databases. Your roots of knowledge go infinitely deeper than the wisdom of any man. You’ve blessed me with a mind,the next step involves learning how to make use of it.

A vent for the water on the ceiling,A window in the midst of a moldy wall.A lung full of second-hand carcinogens,A wellspring of fresh air.Your words applied then and your words apply now.

Life has called us his own, when we were holding hands with the grave. If we would be vulnerable to our new life - love, surely the globe would find itself smitten, holding the hand of a kind-hearted and sensible lover.